Americans are so against the construction of artificial intelligence data centers in their local areas that they'd rather see a nuclear power plant built nearby, according to new polling data released by Gallup.
An Amazon Web Services data center near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Virginia.
Getty Images
A Gallup survey released Wednesday shows 71% of Americans are somewhat or strongly opposed to the building of AI data centers in their area, mostly out of concern for their environmental impact.
That number is much higher than the 53% of respondents who said they'd oppose the building of a nuclear energy plant in their area (more than one-third of the U.S. population lives or works within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant).
Seventy percent of respondents said they were worried to some degree about how the centers, infamous for their massive energy and water consumption, would impact the local environment, and other respondents cited concerns about quality of life, economic impact and general worries about AI.
Only 7% of people said they strongly favor the building of data centers nearby, and those people, along with the 20% who responded they're "somewhat" in favor, said they think the centers would benefit the economy, create jobs and increase tax revenue.
The majority of all major demographic groups and political parties said they would oppose having a data center built where they live, but women and Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to be strongly opposed.
AI data centers are specialized, high-performance facilities designed specifically to allow for the mass training of artificial intelligence models. Before AI, data centers spanned about 100,000 square feet and were mostly used to run internet-based businesses and for cloud computing, but the massive energy needs of the new technology have spurred the creation of megacampuses that cover millions of square feet and hundreds of acres. Those centers, which house hundreds of thousands of the graphics processing units (GPUs) needed for AI training, can have the same energy needs as hundreds of thousands of households between powering the tech, cooling and storing it. Data center construction is expanding fastest in Texas, Virginia and Georgia, and companies like OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, Amazon and Microsoft have huge ones in the works.
5 million gallons. That’s how much water large data centers can consume per day, equivalent to the water use of a town with a population of 10,000 to 50,000.
Half of people who said they were opposed to local data centers in the Gallup poll said they worried about impact on resources, including excessive water use, energy consumption and a loss of farmland or wildlife habitats. Almost a quarter said they were most worried about quality of life issues and an impact on local costs, specifically mentioning higher utility bills and a general cost of living increase in the area. Other concerns included noise, light, air and water pollution and general concerns about AI, including ethics issues, job stability and a lack of regulation around the AI industry.
Nearly 50,000 residents of Lake Tahoe, a popular tourist destination in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, have been told their utility company will stop providing them with electricity in 2027. The utility, NV Energy, will instead use that power for data centers in northern Nevada, one of the fastest growing data center corridors in the nation and where Google, Microsoft and Apple have all either built or planned facilities, Fortune reported. Residents have until next May to find a new electric provider.
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